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All about the upcoming Early Access!

Welcome everyone! The early access version of Ghost of a Tale is nearly upon us! So it’s now time to talk about specifics.

The game is going to be available for PC in early access on Steam, GOG and this very site (with the help of the Humble widget).

If you’re a backer of the Indiegogo campaign you can look forward to an email from us within the next 24h to 48h. You’ll be able to choose which key you’d like to receive and when you get that key it will let you play the game right away! 🙂

For everyone else, although you can’t yet buy the game you can still access the store pages by clicking on either of the pictures below.

Console versions will come at a later time since the PC release must be done before anything else is possible.

But before I continue talking about the early access let me say this: I recently looked at the last trailer (from 2014) and was really surprised by the difference in visual quality. So I captured a frame and tried to match it roughly to the same angle/time-of-day. First the 2014 version:

And here’s with what the game looks like today. I really need to start working on a new trailer!

So much has changed since then. And I don’t mean just the graphics! 😀

But let me go back to the topic of the early access. Actually instead of boring you with a dry litany of information let me break it down into a series of questions you may ask yourselves.

What are the technical requirements for Ghost of a Tale?

Well, you need a gaming PC of course. By this I mean essentially a graphics card that can run modern games. Laptops which are mostly used to browse the web or play older games probably won’t cut it.

On the CPU side an Intel i5 @ 2.5Ghz is the minimum. On the video card side, see if you can locate your card on this chart (available on videocardbenchmark.net) and look at its score:

In a nutshell, here’s what to expect (assuming your CPU is not the bottleneck in your machine):

If your video card is well above 7K you’ll have a grand old time, period!

If your video card reaches 4K or more, you’re hunky-dory; that would pretty much warranty 1080p at a solid 30fps.

If your video card is between 2K and 3K you might have to lower the resolution to 720p in order to maintain 30fps.

If your video card is well below 2K I advise you only buy Ghost of a Tale with the understanding that you will not get a smooth experience unless you bring down the resolution even more.

If your video card is well below 1K then I advise you do not buy the game as I cannot guarantee it will run as intended.

Do I have to use a gamepad to play Ghost of a Tale?

No. However, while the game fully supports mouse/keyboard it is fundamentally designed with a gamepad in mind (I use the Xbox One’s).

Since Ghost of a Tale is a third-person game where body-awareness is fairly important it’s just nicer and more precise to use a Gamepad. But in the end it’s your choice of course.

What can I expect from the early-access version?

A beautiful place to explore, NPCs to encounter, secrets to discover, dialogs, quests, etc…

If you intend to immerse yourself in that world and try to do each quest then you’ll have quite a few hours of enjoyment ahead of you.

The early access represents roughly 25-30% of the game (at most). But by a lot of aspects it only shows a VERY LIMITED slice of what the final game will be. We removed some mechanics, enemies, and systems and walled off several locations linked to quests that are not yet available.

Eventually you’ll be able to explore the whole of Dwindling Heights and meet all of its denizens; this is just a portion of it.

(One last note: the “fancy hat” edition will arrive later on, either as an update to the early access or with the final version of the game…)

Is the early-access English-only?

Yes. For now. Dialogs and quests will evolve until the final game is complete, so if we translate the game now a lot of work is going to have to be completely redone later on. And at the moment we simply cannot afford to do this from a financial point of view (more on that later).

Here’s a screenshot to provide some breathing space. Look, the sun is about to rise over Dwindling Heights…

Why should I buy the game now instead of waiting for the final version?

That’s a fair question and the answer revolves around money: there’s none left.

Successful games’ crowdfunding campaigns can reach a few hundred thousand dollars, sometimes even close to a million. The campaign for GoaT brought roughly $40K of effective budget.

As some of you know I’ve been working on Ghost of a Tale each and every day of my life for the last three years and I’ve paid myself $500 per month. The rest of the money went to buy hardware, licenses and of course to compensate my collaborators.

Note that I’m not complaining at all; no-one is forcing me to create Ghost of a Tale!

Now we could very well start a new crowdfunding campaign but it would require quite a lot of time and energy and it would push back the game by as much. I prefer to put that effort into development. And given the advanced state of Ghost of a Tale I think the early access route is the best for everyone.

That being said I totally respect players who would rather play the game when it’s finished and prefer to wait for the final version to be released.

If however you choose to buy the pre-release version, know that you are actually making the development of Ghost of a Tale possible. Plus you get a better price while the game is still in early access since the final version will likely be more expensive when it’s out.

And if I’m still not convinced…?

Well, what can I say. How many games let you play as a minstrel mouse in a world that looks right out of a fairy tale? Which doesn’t expect you to slaughter anyone and instead appeals to your sense of wonder…? 🙂

If you believe in the game then please, spread the word! Let your friends know that the pre-release is coming very soon!

I’ll do an update to let you guys know as soon as the pre-release is out for everyone. If we don’t discover anything catastrophic during the next few days then everyone will get a chance to experience Ghost of a Tale next week, on Monday the 25th of July… 🙂

Good question. I’ll mention this in the email but I’m simply asking that you guys refrain from posting any extensive walk-through videos until the early access is out for everyone next week. Short videos are alright of course.

Felix

KwisatzHaderach

July 18, 2016 at 8:50 pm

Yes, I’ll probably have to toss a coin to decide… I generally prefer GoG but in this case it would be nice to be able to stream some gameplay and recommend it on the store page. Give the game some good press 😉

evilkinggumby

July 18, 2016 at 5:59 pm

wow.. the difference in visual fidelity is amazing but… I am a little worried you are shooting for such high requirements to play the game. I hope that doesn’t cut out a lot of fans who want to play it (the charm of the game will attract a lot of non-hardcore gamers and they primarily won’t have the hardware you’re shooting for).

Heck I am an avid gamer and I am nowhere near the specs you’re shooting for(i sit at 5069) . is it optimised at all for AMD cpu’s? I ran into an issue with a game that just ran like crud on AMD systems, even though it should have run like nothing on em.. i ended up getting the first and only refund on steam ever because the developers had no timeline to fix the issues and patch….

evilkinggumby

July 22, 2016 at 2:00 pm

thanks. i am playing the beta now that I have a key. It runs.. ok. Though that first push to load everything before getting to the initial title screen is brutal (and i’m playing it off a SSD) . But the load times for the start of the game are ok and during gameplay it only stuttered and held for a few seconds in spots but nothing horrible.

Framerate is sketchy. I am running it at 1080p with motions blur off and lighting and dynamix turned to 25% (appx) and it still runs… i’d say 30fps? ish?

where should we post glitches/bugs or problems? Can I make a thread on the forums or do you have a proper channel?

Jimmey

July 18, 2016 at 6:25 pm

It got soooo pretty!

Just for a laugh I’ll try my laptop, if (when) it fails I’ll borrow my bro’s PC he made from scrap parts (his old workplace threw out stupidly good stuff… High end ssd’s and such… No use letting them go in the bin.)

Good to see it’s made it this far, very impressive… Here’s to hoping it picks up momentum and sells well to reward all the hard work you’ve put in!

Someguy

July 18, 2016 at 7:16 pm

Damn you, Seith! I saw the words “Early Access” and was like, “Pff, yea right!, but then I saw that you are out of money and am now seriously considering breaking my vow to never preorder, kickstart, or buy early access.

KwisarzHaderach

July 19, 2016 at 5:48 am

I don’t think these specs are surprising. Just look at what the game delivers visually… Needing a three year old middle class graphics card (e.g. the gtx 760) and an even older middle class i5 is a fair demand for a game this beautiful.

Seylyn

Seylyn

July 19, 2016 at 10:45 pm

Very excited to see the game has reached this point! Hopefully my computer can run it without sacrificing too much graphic quality; it would be a shame not to be able to fully experience all the work that has gone into this game.

I hope early access release goes smoothly for you! I’ll be casually passing some store page links to friends in the mean time ;)…

Gurvy

July 20, 2016 at 9:05 am

Hello there !

Great work Seith :p

Sorry to ask, but the early access for Indiegogo bakers has started ? That make 2 days and nothing in my mailbox ! I can’t wait to play it, you must be very busy so sorry for the question, but I don’t want to miss it !

Hey Curvy. By now you should have received the first email, which asks you which key (Steam or GOG) you’d like to receive. Maybe allow for 24h more hours and if you still see nothing then please send me an email (contact at ghostofatale dot com). Cheers!

Great! Actually I have to individually reply to each of you guys with the requested code. It can’t be automatized because everyone has a choice of the service they prefer (Steam or GOG). So it’s going to take me a moment, I apologize in advance… 🙂

Gurvy

Sam

July 22, 2016 at 3:48 pm

Hey Seith!

Got my key and played a bit earlier. So far it’s great fun! I do have a couple of questions though.

First, is there a form or specific email to provide feedback/bug reports? I havent encountered anything significant yet but I did grab a screenshot of a very visible gap in the world at the beginning of the game.

Second, any plans to add a few more graphics option in the full release? I’m specifically thinking about Depth of Field. It’s something I usually disable in games as it tends to lead to headaches after extended play periods if it’s too intense.

Other than that it’s been a great experience so far. I especially like the addition of footnotes that expand on the lore of the world.

Christoph

July 23, 2016 at 6:45 am

I played the early access version for almost 2h now, and I’d like to give some feedback. To get the obvious out of the way: The game is absolutely gorgeous, fantastic work! The controls are also very responsive and there are way more nice mechanics in the game than I hoped for.

The only real issues I’ve had so far are of technical nature. There is some heavy stutter during some transitions (which might be hard to fix and is far from a dealbreaker). Performance is generally dropping quite often, especially in larger areas (my system: i5 3570k @4.2 GHz, GTX 970, 8 Gb RAM, installed on a HD). Loading seems very hit and miss so far, with loading often crashing, guards getting stuck immediately after loading and dramatic music still playing when loading directly in a chase.

To more minor things I noticed: Guard awareness seems to increase a bit too abruptly. A slower build-up to being spotted might be helpful, especially when sneaking past sleeping guards. Climbing ladders is quite slow, but this is a very minor niggle. The jump seems very underpowered, and I have a hard time judging where I can jump and where not – again a small problem as jumping doesn’t seem to be a big focus.

Overall, I’m super impressed with the game. It has been a pleasure following the progress of this project and I wish you all the best during the last sprint.

It’s not even just about how good it looks; every single of your updates on this blog made me more and more confident that you also care a lot about making it an enjoyable experience to play and had a grasp of what was needed for it.

David

July 24, 2016 at 4:14 am

That 2014 to 2016 screen shot comparison is so stark it’s incredible. Really looking forward to playing this, although I’ll likely have to wait for a console release. I don’t own a good enough PC to play it.

Ben

July 25, 2016 at 5:08 pm

So, what would be the best way for you to get the most of my money with the early access ? I understand Steam takes something like a 30% cut. Is gog better ? (although I personally would prefer it on the humble store, but you’re the priority atm…)

Phil

I just wanted to commend you on your effort to get to this stage with so much hard work. I’ve never commented on an early access game before, but I guess you truly inspired me to write!

I first saw this a long time ago and hadn’t really given it much thought until I saw it again today and instantly bought it. I have only played a bit, and besides a few small bugs it was beautiful and inspirational.

Can’t wait to play the finished product! I bought on steam but if you had a method to buy directly from you, I definitely would have.

Erwin

July 27, 2016 at 1:46 pm

My work laptop has a CPU lesser than that, and my videocard isn’t even on that list (but as a Radeon R5 I assume it would be lower than Radeons that are on there). So while I’m a backer, even if I did in fact use Steam or GoG, this would be a no go.

Charles

July 27, 2016 at 8:39 pm

Super impressed by what I’m seeing here and on Steam. I RARELY go for early access, and never for a game professing to be just 30% or so complete, but I can and will support this … ok, time to pull out the credit card. 😉

I remember seeing this years ago and thinking that I HAVE to play this when it comes out. When I saw it on Steam I couldn’t believe it was the same game. Amazing work bro. I don’t usually pre-order or by Early Access games, but when I read this I knew I had to lend my support. So BOUGHT!

TrippyTrix

August 1, 2016 at 5:40 am

I never go for early access, never, because I’m so paranoid about the game never being completed and my support would be for naught.

But I literally gasped when I saw your game pop up in my steam queue, it was so charming and pretty and you hit my weakness of small fuzzy things. (I’ve kept hamsters and rats and chinchillas) Still super wary of early access though, so I followed the game and moved on.

…but I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I wanted to play it so bad. So I went back to the store page, and found the link to this site. After reading all your updates and looking at the progress you’ve made, I’ve decided to take the plunge and buy. You’re one of the most active and hard working game devs I’ve seen, answering almost every question thrown your way, updating frequently so your supporters aren’t in the dark, and overall being an awesome person. So I knew even if the worst happened and we never got a complete game (fingers crossed!) I know my money went to a great developer that deserved every cent 🙂

Voiceovers is a possibility but I really like the fact that the players can imagine the character’s voice in their mind while they read. We might add noises though, a little like in Rare’s games where each character has a specific sound effect, without being proper English words.

Regarding the camera going through walls: if you mean that it literally goes through walls, keeping its default distance to Tilo than that’s indeed a bug which should have been fixed by now.

But if you mean that sometimes it gets so close to the walls’ surface that it can reveal a little of the skybox behind then I’m thinking of a solution for that, but I still have to put it into practice.

Mathias Eliasson

August 3, 2016 at 10:25 am

Hi Seith, not sure if you received my emails regarding the key, I tried sending to both your adresses. If you did not, please let me know so I can type my email here instead (and you can hopefully remove it after to avoid spam).

Sir Knight

August 8, 2016 at 3:26 pm

I’ve played as much of the early access version as I can on my old computer full of crashes. (Some crashes are the fault of the game, some surely are the fault of my old computer.) It is as adorable and full of personality as I had hoped. I sat there for a good ten seconds at the start just going “I’m a mouse! I’m a mouse!”

I see there’s plenty of discussion on the forums for getting bugs identified and handled. Most of my concerns seem to have been mentioned, including a short list of graphics options and the problem of zooming into Tilo’s head. I’d just add one concern about content: I wasn’t expecting sex jokes, especially since the mouse theme appeals to the same crowd as Redwall and other children’s books. It might bump up any game rating (“crude humor”) but would be very easy to eliminate at this stage in development.

Anyway, I knew from your preview images that the game world would be absurdly detailed, and I’m thrilled to have such a beautiful thing on my computer. The game is responsive, smooth, and just a few bug fixes away from solid. Not to mention it’s continuously charming. (I’m a mouse! I’m a mouse!) Thank you!

Ebi

August 11, 2016 at 9:46 pm

Hi Seith, very good work! Hope, there will be enough money to come in, that you can finish the rest of the game in the same standard you did with the jail, sewers and the courtyard! I bought the game on GoG in seconds and now, after having played it ….. would buy it additionally on Steam to support your work. But there is a better way: Give us a dedicated PayPal-Link, where I can give you the money directly, without any profit margin for Steam or GoG.

Ezydenias

August 13, 2016 at 6:07 pm

Just bought the game. Actually one I missed for a long time to even know anything about. But that game just gave me a blast. I can’t wait for the full version to come out, but I guess I have. I really recognized that a movie guy and not a games guy was sitting on this game because of the fluent animation and the incredible character Modells. Especially our little protagonist. I mußt also addmit you really nailed it on the childlike wonder, I really hadn’t such a sense of homely unknown in a long time, actually I think the last time when I was a child, so for me you nailed it, you simply nailed it. If you ever need anything, just give me a call.

Undeniably consider that which you stated. Your favourite reason appeared to be at the web the simplest factor to take note of. I say to you, I certainly get irked even as other folks consider concerns that they just don’t know about. You managed to hit the nail upon the highest and defined out the entire thing with no need side effect , other folks could take a signal. Will probably be again to get more. Thank you

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